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The Man From FCPA

The Man From FCPA is a blog about enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other anti-bribery statutes around the world, written primarily by Compliance Week columnist Tom Fox plus other occasional contributors. Fox is now an independent consultant assisting companies with FCPA and compliance issues, after many years as in-house counsel and outside counsel on anti-bribery and corruption issues. Fox also hosts a weekly podcast, “The FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report,” and writes an in-depth monthly column for Compliance Week as well.

The Federal Reserve Bank this month assessed a penalty against Wells Fargo for the bank’s widespread customer abuse from its fraudulent accounts scandal, other regulatory violations, and lack of response by the bank’s doard of directors to these problems and other risk management issues.

In the FCPA world, the most dreaded question during an enforcement action is “where else?”—as in, where else are you engaging in bribery and corruption? After Wells Fargo, the lexicon may well expand to “what else?”—as in what other conduct is your company engaging in that is unethical?

The Wells Fargo fraudulent account scandal still resonates as one of the most prime examples where the continued fallout from a board’s failure in the area of oversight of risk management is working to damage the organization.

The Man From FCPA, Tom Fox, asks why it is always the employee’s fault when a corporation engages in fraudulent activity leading to regulatory fallout. Perhaps the CEO of Wells Fargo, responsible for the firing of 5,300 “rogue” employees for fraudulent activity, has the answer.

Tom Fox looks at the recent scandal at Wells Fargo leading to the Consumer Finance Protection Board’s $185 fine and the firing of more than 5,000 employees after basically telling them: “It’s OK to break the law, as long as we make money.”